


Blue Lost to the Tides

by FabularumScriptorem217



Series: Blue [4]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Blue Spirit Zuko (Avatar), Character Death, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, POV Alternating, Spirits, Trauma, Zuko (Avatar)-centric, Zuko is an Awkward Turtleduck
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-15
Updated: 2021-01-01
Packaged: 2021-03-08 23:53:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,626
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27335239
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FabularumScriptorem217/pseuds/FabularumScriptorem217
Summary: In the North, the waters are frozen. Tui's light touches down on glistening waves of frozen white. Frozen, as it has been for eighty years now, eighty out of one hundred years now.The Avatar has returned.And the waves grow larger, and the tides grow stronger, and the ice will burn as surely as the water will drown.They had waited for him, they had waited one hundred years for him.Seasons change and—The gaang has made it North with Fire trailing in their wake. Red and Black and...Blue.
Series: Blue [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1839013
Comments: 54
Kudos: 288





	1. She stands—

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MikkiOfTheAnbu](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MikkiOfTheAnbu/gifts), [KidWestHope16](https://archiveofourown.org/users/KidWestHope16/gifts), [MuffinLance](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MuffinLance/gifts).



> Hello everyone thank you so much for waiting, I understand this was a much longer wait than the other chapters and stories in this series. So, thank you for waiting and thank you for still reading.
> 
> This story is **inspired by _blade of silver, forge of blue_ by [MikkiOfTheAnbu](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MikkiOfTheAnbu); and _Atla Au outlines to write later (chapter 25 especially)_ by [KidWestHope16](https://archiveofourown.org/users/KidWestHope16/) **. And the characters mostly belong to atla; or **[MuffinLance](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MuffinLance)**; and some are mine. Let me know how you like it, leave comments or kudos. Hope you enjoy!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> > Standing in a place like none she's ever known, grass green below, air damp with heat, and walls that glisten in the fading sunlight, Katara stands as black snow falls. 
>> 
>> She stands and watches over Aang, the last of his people.
> 
> The blue of the North and the Red of the Nation, and all Katara cares about that remains in the North is here. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you like it, and feel free to let me know how it went! 
> 
> **Trigger Warning:** character death; effects of war and colonization.

###  Chapter 1: 

In the North the waters are frozen, Tui's light touching down on glistening waves of frozen white, walls of snow. Frozen, for eighty years now, eighty out of a hundred years now. Still, stagnant. Those of the water are those of change, just as the tides do and as the moon does. They are the people of change. Eighty years and the flame had not returned. _Not to the North._ They had walls higher and higher, they had built walls. The ice did not break. Higher and higher walls of white. To keep them out. To keep them in. They had packed tradition into the ice and snow and had then built houses and bridges and a nation upon it. The water in the North was frozen, unchanging. Winter to Spring, the seasons change and—

_The Avatar had returned, the North was no longer neutral;_  
( _They had waited for him, they had waited one hundred years for him)._

—ice breaks.

* * *

Standing in a place like none she's ever known, grass green below, air damp with heat, and walls that glisten in the fading sunlight, Katara stands, arms curled around herself, and hates the world.

Blackened snow was falling...and she was angry.

Blackened snow was falling upon shores of untouched white, the waves rush in. Katara is angry and she hates how angry she is. White, she is surrounded by the ice and snow. Buildings built with the determination of bending the waves. Blue, she is surrounded by more than she's ever known, benders in greater numbers than the sum of her entire village even with the warriors home. Katara is surrounded by her people...surrounded by water, and she hates them for it. She wishes she didn't— but she does. And she knows that this is just another thing she is to never tell Aang. Not this, no never this. They had traveled across the world, pole to pole, they had finally made it to her sister tribe after everything—and all she can feel is the barely concealed anger that hardens the edges of her smile until it is as razor focused as the discs she had thrown at a man who had doubted her. Until it matches the smiles presented to her and her brother. They are her sister tribe, and Katara is angry. She is angry, as whitened hair and a purpled dress stand beside her, Yue, a demonstration of all that they think of her of them ( _she had not wanted to be an exception, but the North—it didn't change. It hadn't changed for eighty years now, eighty out of a hundred years now. And if Yue couldn't what was she—_ ). She hates it. And She hates these _men_ , these untested warriors, how they look upon her brother who has known blood and fire and steel _he had ran straight up that ramp, face painted, alone._ She hates and she hates, for they had ignored their calls for aid, they had hid, they had refused to help, and they had only cared for themselves, only saved themselves. They had ignored the Southern Seas as they were slaughtered and stolen and—. They had ignored them and she hates most of all...that she can't. Katara would never turn her back on people who need her. And they did.

And she doesn't know how.

_Please, please, our people you need to save them you have to help. There are children crying and mothers huddled over them, and the gates are closing._ They are the North, they don't have room for any others.

_We are going to war, it's been long enough...after all they've done to us and our people...join us and fight...they could come for you next...we need your help._ They are the North, and they had walls to protect them, their warriors were needed there and only there. Fire doesn't come North. 

Blackened snow was falling and the battlefield was singing as the waves called to her— _pull them under, crush them, drown them._ People forget that water kills. _Seconds they would have seconds, cold it was too cold, frozen waves that pull the strength from their veins and use it to crush them under, they would drown, they were drowning._ Lungs rasped raw. _They would drown, water kills and ice burns. And people forget._ Katara doesn't, she can't. There is salt in her veins and the blood of her people in her teeth, she wants to scream, _This is not a smile. Wolves do not smile._ It is a warning, the North had not heeded, until she had proven herself. A warning they had not heeded and if she were not kinder she would have shown them the tides that pull at her, she would have pulled them under for even daring to consider her lesser. There is salt on her bones, her lips, for she is of the waves and the North cannot change her (she cannot change them), and they will never control her. The ocean is not something they control, they bend his waters, but he does not heed their calls, the Ocean does not answer to them and only them. It is not to be controlled. There is salt on her lips and she is baring her teeth. This is not a smile. And the tides can only be held back for so long...but Katara is not the tides, she is not the ocean, and she can be kind. Even to those who are not.

Even when she hates...

She will not answer its call, the ice shifts below, but she will not turn her back on them (as they had hers). Blackened snow was falling, and the battlefield was singing, out in the snow there is a wolf alone as always, and Katara stands watching over Aang.

She'll watch, as the skies turn black and she seethes at what should have been hope, the fact that water persists somewhere. As the black snow falls and she hates the world. For showing her sanctuary and the untouched snow only to watch it ruin under reds and blacks and armored feet, as the Nation had followed in their wake. For a necklace which should have still been her mother's, which had been her GranGran's, which was apparently _his_. Katara stands a purpled dress and whitened hair beside her and she is angry, and guilty, and angry that she feels guilty. She hates this, that this is what they were given. That ashes on her tongue was all she's ever known. That father's leave and mother's die. That people can choose not to help in the face of destruction, that they could ignore—when she can't. She still can't. Katara was born into a world that she hates.

Black snow is falling,  
_and she hates it even more._

* * *

The water in the North was frozen—this among other things are known.

Known as in the way, names are, as in the way, war is...in most places.

The water is frozen in the North, its cities streams and people were frozen. For eighty years now, eighty out of a hundred years now, they had been frozen—and water is not meant to be still.

This should have been known, as many things should be. But they tend to be forgotten, that's what war and death and fire does.

The North had woven their stories onto paper, with ink and tiger-seal skin—and they had forgotten them. The North had still forgotten them. Seas away, blood and a war away—a world away really— there is a hut filled with the mothers whose children sit beside them, the mothers whose children ride the bloodied waves bringing blue into a world of reds and browns and green, the dirt and earth below reddened as all things are now. And the mothers who sit in a hut and have lost all those who had made them a mother. They sit with those too old and too young to die with their faces painted, only cowering and afraid against the dirtied snow. _Show no fear._ They sit in a hut filled with those who know the ash in the wind and the way soot stains, they sit and they weave their stories into the air, to remember with words and movement.

_They still forget though._

__

They forget. As stories can only be remembered when there are those to tell them. And there is steel now, on their wrists and in their hearts as they are kept away from the moon above and the water in their veins, their moods like the tides. There is no one left to tell them. 

__

They still forget.  
And they do not know what they have forgotten.

__

Water had froze, when the air grew hot and the yellows and oranges and the wind that had answered their call was burnt out, lost. _There is no room for peace in a world at war. No room for nomads either. Pacifists._ One hundred years ago they had froze. Froze, the North had froze, as ships had sailed the southern seas—as they were raided, their people stolen, and their lands diminished. They had forgotten. North, North, they were the North and there is no room for anything else within their walls ( _except the Avatar_ ). The North did not know how they were adrift ( _as all are without others_ ). There was no room for compassion in a world at war.

__

They were the North, they were the people of the water and the moon, the tides and the freshly fallen snow. They were of the cold, the frozen, the unforgiving land. And they had fashioned themselves as such. This was known. As is that the North is thriving as the world turns to ashes below.

__

Their traditions were what was to save them, ~~their inability to adapt was to damn them~~.

__

The waves are always changing, and the North is still, stagnant.

__

They had forgotten.

__

Ships of steel with red hot coals head North.  
_Ships of wood and blue worn sails—turn back South._

__

The war is here,  
And it does not forgive.  
And it does not forget.

__

It is here.

__

Ice breaks.

__

* * *

__

Between one breath and the next; the air heavy with the damp of the oasis, grows ever so warmer, heavier, filling the green in this hidden oasis surrounded by walls of ice and snow—with other. _He's my friend, I can protect him._ Katara stands, watching over the last remnant of a lost nation, orange and yellow, a lost people, with no one to truly know him—to understand him and his lost concept of peace. 

__

It had been a hundred years and they had been shaped by that loss. The world her friend grew up in, did not exist. Aang did not know this world, this war, he was not shaped by it as they were. Katara stands, watching, and knows that she would kill—if needed. The air nomads were pacifists, they did not believe in violence, in killing, in war...they wouldn't have survived, ~~they didn't~~. Katara would kill if she had to. She hates this world and how it does not know mercy. But she would, she would do it to protect Aang, because they were his new family, he was her tribe and—she would do it to protect this, this concept. Aang knew a world without war. And Katara, Katara would like to see that some day. Had never stopped believing in that— _the Avatar would return and the world would be saved and her Dad would come home, ~~her Mom wouldn't come back though~~_. She hadn't expected him to be twelve. She hadn't expected it to be this hard. She hadn't wanted— Aang was the Avatar and he was hope, and she would not let that die. She would not let that burn. They would have to tear it away from her— they would have to try for she stands surrounded by her people, her element. Aang was the last, and that at least she knew. She couldn't understand what it was to lose everyone and everything. But she could understand this, to have no one truly know her. Katara was the last of a lost tradition, a lost culture, they had come and burned and stolen, they had taken it from them—and left her the last. _MOM—go find your father, Katara._ Her blues had dwindled smaller, and no one had known the pull of the tides and the phases of the moon as she does. How the moon calls and how she aches. She is empty, there is a vast emptiness, an ache within her that cannot be filled, they had scooped out the other, all the others like her, and left her alone. No one to dance with, to learn with, her forms had been choppy and stuttering, unintelligible from the waving of her brother's arms as he speaks. She hadn't known how to bend, they had stolen that from her—from them. They had stolen the water right out of them. How could they be water when they were disconnected from it, when they could not remember the waves, the tides, and the moon? Fire had come and they had stolen the traditions, the culture, the knowledge. 

The North—they had hoarded it, hid it behind walls of ice and snow and then they had tried to deny her—the last, the very right to know it and she had shown them. _It's not the same, it will never be the same, they had lost the way of the waves, how the South had called to the moon, the tides, the dance of her people, the Northern way was all that was left to her—all that was left. How was she to call to the moon when the prayers were forgotten, stolen._ They had tried to deny her. Waves roar, crash, and drag the unsuspecting under. Katara had wanted to melt to break and tear it all down. This stupid icy fortress that was made to keep them safe, only them safe. She hadn't though. Water can be patient...usually. She had had to fight to prove herself for them to take her and teach her— _that's my mother's necklace,_ —and it wasn't good enough, it was never good enough. _Icy looks, whispers, again and again, not like that, do it again, raised eyebrows, she is still the only one_. And worst of all, Katara hadn't changed them. They took her but they hadn't changed. The North was water but they do not change. They were frozen. They had never been broken, they have never known the broken ice and melted snow, how it is to reform harder, stronger, better. To move, to change, to adapt. Black snow up above, maybe she should have shown them, but it is too late. Black snow up above, and the North with its glistening ice and snow, still beautiful and unchanging...black snow was falling and ice would melt and it would break. That is what Fire does. They had taught her that. But the North had not learned and they do not listen.

__

Katara watches over this last remnant of a lost nation, as the battlefield sings to her, water is not kind, but she will not fight, not yet. Water is not kind, but she can be. She will protect this here, she will fight for this future and this land that had turned its back on hers. Katara watches over Aang—her friend—and knows she would protect him, would kill for him, even if he would never ask her to.

Even if he would never want her to.

She wouldn't like it, there is salt in her bones and the waves roar, but she would do it. She may hate this world, but she will never stop fighting to change it—to save it.

__

Blue.

__

The Oasis warms, white and white and blue. _Other._ The air moves around them, dancing and wavering, Katara stands, ready. _GranGran wrinkled eyes tired but still bright— in a hut filled with women and children, the cold outside and the warmth inside—rocks, dancing moving shifting, she rocks as the waves do, flows as her words do, she speaks and they listen. This is important, this is who they are, this is the water, and they are of the South. And if they forget the stories are lost so they must strive to remember, so they listen and Katara learns of the spirits._

__

Spirit.

__

_The wind is tearing pulling at her hair, they do not belong here. They are not of the skies and storms, those that had been were lost. Words blown away the instant they are spoken through quivering lips. She shares a look with Sokka, and they listen._

__

Blue Spirit, donned in the white of the ice and snow.

__

_He hadn't meant to— but he had._

____

She is moving before Yue can pull her away. Push and Pull, 

____

_He hadn't meant to—but he had._

_____ _

...spirits never forgive...

_____ _

Katara is a fighter, her veins are filled with the salt of the Ocean— that wrecks ships and drowns people alike, that is ruthless. She had ignored its calls, the battlefield sings, and she would not now.

Her water whip goes flying into what is now but darkness and shadows, she turns, searching looking shifting, she turns and turns and never stops moving. _Water never stills._ Blue before her, head tilted. She does not scream. She had run fast fast faster before, to her—her father, to the hut where a strange man in colors she had never seen before had stood with her mother, and she had not screamed not when they had made it back to her mom and she knew red (it is the color that stains the snow). She does not scream now. Not as it turns its head from side to side and moves with no regard for how it should, if it were human, spirits are not bound by mortal laws...or physical constraints. She does not scream, as it is in front of her, now, it is in front of her. And she knows. It could take her, they could take her if they wish to, right now, and she would not be able to stop them. She would try. But she would not be able to stop them. Katara had struck at a spirit, knowingly struck at a spirit (not that it being an accident would matter either, they are not human), they could take her. Head tilted, they do not.

And she does not know what that means,  
Or if that is worse.

She wants to scream—but she does not.

Katara is of the waves and the ice and the snow, a blizzard rages above, but here—it is warm.  
Tui dances above and it is warm.

She does not scream—but she waits. She knows what Aang had done, what he hadn't meant to, what had kept him up when Tui stood above, what had led to him hiding salt stained cheeks, he was scared, and he felt guilty, and spirits do not forgive. Aang—the last remnant of a lost world, the Avatar, hope. She waits and watches wary and ready.

* * *

He is running, wolves at his heels, he runs. Fire is raining. Blackened snow and whitened hair. He had warned her, warned them— _their chief stood in halls of white bigger and grander than anything Sokka had ever seen. Warriors beside him, their ranks (their prosperity) visible in their ornaments. The chief is speaking and Sokka watches the blue stone he cannot name bob up and down with the words that flow through his lips, pierced, not with the ivory of the walrus-elephant, but blue. He does not know why he bothers, they had not listened when they had asked for help, they had not listened when they had tried to call them to war beside them, and they will not listen now._ He had warned them (who had not bothered in warning them, who had not saved them). _Dark hair and skin, blue eyes, kind, laugh lines and stern frowns._ He is not sure, Sokka, is not sure. Blackened snow and he is running and there is fighting, and he is both fifteen and he is nine, a boomerang in hand, Sokka is still running—but this time it is away. Sokka had learned he knows how important it is to protect now. Like no one had done, in a hut with the furs his father had hunted and— _blue eyes smiling as her hands run over soft gray, they sit and dark hands keep busy. As they pull his hair up into a wolf-tail, keep busy to keep him from turning, turning to see the reddened flush that crosses his skin as – she smiles and tells him, tells Sokka, even as her eyes are up above his shoulder meeting embarrassed blue. She smiles as her words flow forth and she tells of how GranGran had walked in on them, Bato and his father, knife in hand standing over their kill. He had wanted it to be a surprise, he couldn't let her prepare it, it was a gift and...GranGran had stepped in before he could ruin it. She laughs, as the chorus of it wasn't that bad comes from over his shoulder, hands that are busy tying up his hair and hands busy working over their weapon, they flush but they do not argue, as she shakes her head, she is laughing, and they are laughing, and hands run over soft gray and -_ Sokka frowns.

Like no one had done in a hut filled with the furs his father had hunted and - Sokka is angry and he is running and he has people to protect, and the North is not worth it. _Blackened snow, it had landed on his tongue, they had been playing, a snowball fight, he had never tasted the snow again, it was just ashes and death, a warning—Fire is coming._ People are screaming and he runs.

Fast fast faster Sokka runs. And their uniforms look the same, not as the North had thought they would, but the same as in the dreams when he wakes, turns over to quiet and muffle his fears—the fire— into his furs, his father was not here to quiet them, to comfort him, the men had left on ships of wood to fight fire, as if wood would not burn. There is a war and he had left for it, his father is the chief and there is more to the tribe than just him and Katara, ~~and their mom.~~ He had left for it, and they had taken her from them.

And Sokka cannot remember.

_He does not know which is worse._

The waves are not red but the snow already is. And Sokka knows that this is not the first time white had turned to red; although he wishes that it were and he wishes that it wouldn't do so again. But he knows, there is a wolf and it is howling and he knows just as how the moon glows a tad dimmer and the hair on the girl he thinks he might love is just that tad brighter, that it will not be the last time. War is howling, it is a howl that never ends. His father had answered and had taken all the men, but had told him to stay, to watch, to protect, and Sokka does not know how well he did, but he likes to think he did alright. Alright, as he ran up a ramp towards helmeted soldiers and was promptly kicked straight off. Alright, for there were no more men to teach him, they had all left him. Alright, for he was fifteen and he was scared and his hands had shook but he had painted himself, he had put on his armor, and he had taught toddlers to stand tall. _Show no fear_. Even when the fire was to rain above, painted faces, baring teeth, a snarl, a promise. _This will hurt you as much as it will hurt me_. Die fighting. Sokka had taught children how to hold a knife the best he could, and on nights when the moon was gone and he was alone on the ice, Sokka wondered, what his father had thought would happen to them if Fire had returned to their shores while they were away.

He had ran up a ramp towards helmeted soldiers whose masks broadcast death, and he had lost in seconds. But he got back up. And no matter how Sokka hated the angry bald prince he had to give him some credit, no one else had interfered, and he hadn't burnt him to a crisp, as he probably could have. Could have, before a twelve year old on an otter-penguin had arrived. A twelve year old, air nomad, goofy little kid, who didn't know war, and was supposed to stop it. Sokka knows that he could have died, even if Katara doesn't want to admit it, and Aang is too young and too old to understand that all at once. And Sokka wonders if he was meant to die facing those benders, if that was what his father had wanted as he had left them behind. If this was what he was to be given, a painted face and a warriors spirit, only to be burnt and sent to his watery grave. To die. And the children behind him would follow. But he had taught them to hold a knife and he wonders if that was wrong. He would die, and he wonders if his father would be proud as Sokka had ran up a ramp towards helmeted soldiers, alone, would his father be proud? Sokka would have died, if he had to. To protect them. But he had still left them to the icy waves of the south, alone. Sokka had answered the howl, he had joined the war. And if he was to be at fault, then what was his father? 

Sokka is running; and he cannot remember.

Which is worse?

_Blue eyes—kind eyes, laughing as he falls in the snow, as there are two fish hooks and it was a brilliant idea but now both of them are stuck...and they are blue and they are young and they are old, side by side, both kind, both—_

And he doesn't remember, he hates that he doesn't when he wakes with dark skin and dark hair fading. That he cannot remember. 

And there is no time. The North is burning and melting and all Sokka can do is run and he can't remember. He hates it and he hates the black snow that falls, that sticks, that stains. Sokka is a warrior, like his father, and his father's father, like one hundred years of fathers and sons, and he hates it—and he runs from the fight. _There are more important things than fighting, than leaving, than chasing memories and revenge._ He has to protect, he just wants to keep them safe, this time, this time Sokka will protect them.

_This time._

But it gets harder, it is harder now. It was easier when little sisters were with the tribe. When there was an ocean and ice between them and the Nation. When he could usher her into a hut or out onto the snow. When he could convince her to watch out for the toddlers and let him go off chasing imaginary enemies. She had hated it—Katara had hated it, she didn't want to wash his socks, and stay safe in a hut. She didn't want to cook dinner and sew his pants and stay far far away from the Fire Nation Wreck. She wanted to bend ( _but it was dangerous_ ), and she wanted to fight and she wanted to see the world. And then there was an iceberg and then there was a twelve year old who was also a one hundred and twelve year old, and they had rode into battle with the Nation trailing in their wake. Sokka had left his tribe, he had abandoned his people, for his sister ( _His father had done so for a ghost; ~~had done so for their future~~.). And she didn't want to stay safe._

__

There are ships of steel and fires are lighting up this darkening day, the reddening snow. They came and they had painted their colors across the land of the South. Leaving them with black and red and pushing their own to sea, having to give them back to La for they weren't theirs anymore. _It is the only way to ensure that they get where they are going, we give them back for as Tui and La gave us life we give ours back to them. It's the only way to keep them from being lost._ They were already lost and gone. Sokka had not understood, and he is running he is still running, and he still doesn't.

Fire was not the only one at fault. Not the only one who had took from them.

Hair as white as snow, with the traditions of her people wrapped around her throat—tying her down. The eyes and a necklace that are his mom's. Blue and Blue and Green. Katara startles as he shoves the wooden door open, marked with the moon, Tui, but she does not kill him and he is glad (he wouldn't want that on her conscience, he wouldn't want any death—but it is war and she had marched off to it just as their father had done). Sokka had ran and he had made it, two sets of blue eyes stare at him, he had made it. He would protect them this time, and if he cannot remember, _blue eyes—kind, a necklace;_ , what he cannot remember, well he doesn't have to tell. And he won't lose them again.

Blue.

Frost it, he raises his boomerang as they try to wave him off. _GranGran smacking him upside the head as he declares it to be but magic nonsense, saying that he'll learn, he'll see. Sokka believes in science, he is rational, he doesn't need magic water to follow his movements to make him special, and he doesn't need magic beings to believe in. Especially ones that didn't answer prayers no matter how hard he had begged._ Blue Spirit, that is what Aang had called it. They were sitting in a saddle, higher than people should ever be, higher than Sokka could have imagined, flying over blue and blue and blue, with two beings who were supposed to be just stories, and he meets Katara's eyes as Aang gives in and tells them what he was rushing to forget, rushing to play and talk talk talk for. Talking and talking and never letting on as to what is wrong, he had told them, and Sokka was suspicious. Blue across from him in a world of green, Sokka is still suspicious, but there are icy walls and the only people in the North worth protecting. So if this _spirit_ , Sokka's arm hair was standing up and he could feel a watchful heavy gaze weighing him before turning to crouch beside another glowing impossibility, well if they could help—Sokka would watch them but he wouldn't say no. Katara was here, Yue was here, Aang was here. He would watch, Tui above Hei Bai did not count, and if this magic nonsense could help...black snow is falling...well he would worry about the Blue second. 

Red was coming.

* * *

Tui watched as her brother's people sailed across La to reach hers. How they waged war on hers and stained her villages red. She watched as the people of the North, her own people forgot who she was and what she is capable of. As they used their traditions to justify their oppression. As they turned their family away as they came with swaddled blue crying out to the moon, to her. Tui knew many things as a spirit. She knew that the darkened shadow, the little flame that falls under her eye, was meant to be her brother's spark—his change. Her brother so desperately wants to save his people. To stop them. 

She and La who circle one another as they have since they came to live in the mortal world, knowing only what touches her husband's waters or falls under her light. Tui watches her moonbeam, her hair of white, and watches. Ice needs to break to reform, to allow the water to move once more. 

She watches them still stagnant, and waits for change.

She watches as they burn and cry out to her for safety. She thinks if she were human she would cry. But she is not. And she does not. 

Tui, is not human, and she had watched as the nomads had turned to ash in the very wind they claim and call to. She will watch as her people are lost, as the tides overcome. She is sad, she thinks. But she is not human. So she watches, and waits for the ice to break, and the water to flow once more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just an update in case you were wondering why this one took so long, I wanted to let you know the last couple months have been super busy for me. I had three interviews, one a week in September and I get super anxious about those, like I drafted a prep document for each interview. I also had a wedding to attend in September, and luckily whatever I did paid off, because I started a new job in October! Unfortunately since it is all remote it increased my ratio of headache days making it harder to write, one blue light filtering glasses purchase later, and I think with me finally getting a handle on the work load and expectations, I should be able to start working again! 
> 
> My schedule for writing will be different since I will mostly be doing so on weekends and I am also having to research the cost and needs I will have with the future relocation I will need to do for my job, but I'm excited to finally get back to this series, and I am so glad you kept reading. So, thanks!!
> 
> Thank you for waiting, for this took a long time. And bear with me for Katara and Sokka POV were hard for me, so I've rewritten this at least six times over and I am still unsure how it turned out. And an update, in case you were curious, I have typed over 100 pages for this series alone with all of the different drafts and edits I did. Also sorry for your emotions, this one was sad with less funny bits so sorry for that, but I hope you liked it anyways. 
> 
> Thanks for waiting and thanks for reading. And I hope you enjoyed it! If you have any additional ideas for the North Pole arc or this series in general I'd love to hear but no promises on their incorporation because I have a rough layout for how this series goes. Thanks!
> 
> \---  
> Update: 21FEB2021, The Sokka POV has been updated to incorporate [Shadowgirl3666](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shadowgirl3666/pseuds/Shadowgirl3666) feedback. Hope you enjoy!


	2. —She is ready—

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> > In an oasis of hidden rainbows, warm, warmer still with them there and Agni’s rays dancing off his sister to warm them. She dances above and swims below.
>> 
>> They know not what they were called here for, but they know – _ringing singing in their veins in their ears_ – that they will know when it is needed. 
> 
> There is a battle raging, and white turning red. There was a prayer, from the ice and snow - and they are here. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy New Year Everyone!  
>  Hope you enjoy, and feel free to let me know what you think. 
> 
> **Trigger Warning:** referenced character death; effects of war and colonization.

### Chapter 2: 

The days upon bison back grow longer with every inch of uninterrupted blue, they argue. 

Aang is an air nomad, a pacifist, they do not believe in violence – and he wants to throw Sokka to the sea. _No, Appa cannot go faster, he is tired far more than they are, he is carrying them after all_. Aang is a pacifist, he does not believe in violence. He will not throw his equally bored and tired of the blue blue blue companion off of the only remnant of a peaceful world and a life of oranges and yellows he has left. He does not believe in violence, but no matter how hard he tries to convince himself otherwise, Aang knows what the bottom of the Northern Temple holds, what they had helped put there – _but he was just trying to protect_ – it does not matter, and he wishes it weren’t true. He wishes and he wishes, but reality does not change. Aang wishes that those soldiers were the first – _he, he hadn’t meant to_ – it does not change. _A temple full of people like him, orange and yellow, fruit pies and whispering winds to carry the best stories…to catch him when he_ – he was not from this world and Aang cannot help notice how much clearer that is with every passing moment he spends not frozen in an iceberg where he cannot see his mistakes.

Katara and Sokka, they were good people and they hadn’t wanted to – they were good people and Aang can tell that they are sad about it because of course they are, they were good people, but they – but he had, they had – they did what they had to do (and if Aang knows that they were not the first to justify it that way well…). They were good people but…Sokka had been so excited as if what he had figured out wasn’t just another way to make people dead. They were good people and he knows that they are good people, and that they had just wanted to help, just like – just like… Aang had brought them there. He had hoped as he had heard that old man speak of the wind walkers, Aang had never heard that term before, but Gyatso had said that when he was young there were those of the dirt and soil, the earth below, grounded, who would refer to them as such on occasion, so he had – maybe they were – _they weren’t_.

____

Aang had dragged them all to a temple because he had wanted to see – to check – and they had killed people. He had dragged them to a fire festival, and he had burnt Katara. _He hadn’t meant to – but he had_. And maybe Aang was getting too old or still too young or whatever combination there is when he was both twelve and a hundred and twelve years old, but he was starting to understand what Jeong Jeong had meant when he said Fire was nothing but destruction. _Kuzon, laughing, fingers sparking, Aang begging him to show him the trick again, fires dancing and lighting up the black of the sky as they smile._ Kuzon was dead. As was everyone else he knew then, dead or different, and maybe fire was different now too. Aang couldn’t see much good about it. 

____

Different.

____

Aang had asked, sitting on a ledge looking down at the vast expanse of an overly complicated and overly fun mail system in what was one of the oldest cities in the Earth Kingdom – _it had changed, its walls were higher_ – sitting, beside a grayed version of his friend he had asked. Bumi had looked at him, face lined with all the years Aang had yet to live, eyes serious for once, he had told him that _even the mountains shift and grow worn_. Bumi was old and even as he had rattled out nonsense and cackle-snorted out into the dark around them his eyes had told what he really saw – that there were only limited possibilities before them. It had been one hundred years. Bumi had never told him that he might have to kill, that his hands would stain red, accident or not, Aang knew it was his fault. 

____

_The way of the nomads was dying with every drop of red he let paint his choices._  
Accident or not, Aang could feel guilty.

____

There was a forest, covered in the morning mist as Aang had gathered frozen frogs alongside the dead. Dead, for he knew the arrow had struck true, and he didn’t know how to say it. Agni was touching down onto the wood upon their face as Aang had gathered frogs and looked upon someone that he had fought beside the night before, someone whose heart had beat as his still does, and he had wanted to cry.

____

But he had just kept talking.

____

He knew he was bad about talking. Aang was of the yellows and oranges of a forgotten people and he had been told ages ago, ages and ages ago, that his words like the wind never cease. 

____

_The wind had stopped one day, Aang did not know this, nor did anyone else really. Except for a few, who know what disasters follow the stopped wind, and if for a day they were scared and nervous - fearing for their lives, well they're people had felt as such in their dying moments and Feng could not care. Most did not know this, it was hard to notice after all. But there was one day, a day after the skies had turned red and the ashes of thousands had been blown to the wind that they had once called. Feng had cradled their children and took them back to the sky, to them, once more for their final flight and had then laid their head upon the stone of their empty temples and looked to the god of those who had taken theirs – and ceased to fly. They had not acted. Feng was a spirit and they were not supposed to interfere – their temples had burned, and no one was left to call to them…they had done nothing and so for one more full day they did the same._

____

Like many things unfortunately, it went unnoticed - or untold, and the world went on.

____

And he had to decide. 

____

Standing amid the hot humid heat of this damp land, Aang decides to follow. He had come here, now, to this place for answers, and the nomads had always went where the wind led them. It may not be nomads plural and it may not be the wind, but he follows for now. Aang needed answers.

____

Wooden face, blue, they were horned and fanged and they had been terrifying. Even as they had been saving him they were terrifying. They were dead. _He hadn’t meant to – but he had_. Aang needed answers.

____

He had tried talk talk talking but it wasn’t enough. He had tried and he had tried and it wasn’t enough. Aang could ride all the animals of this world and the other world and it wouldn’t be enough. He needed answers, because he couldn’t talk or ignore and he was tired of run run running, he couldn’t run, red always followed. Even the white turned red because he had stepped foot upon it.

____

____

The ground was gross and wet and hot and he was running, Aang wanted to laugh, he was running but it was towards something he didn’t know what but he knew it wasn’t away. He was running and he was following, roots and vines try and trip him up, but Aang keeps following. 

____

He didn’t want to be lost here.

____

Aang had spent months in a world he was continuously more lost in. Where good friends are old men and good deeds don’t go unpunished. He was tired and he just wanted help – he wanted answers.

____

His hands were stained red and he was a nomad and it was never supposed to be this way.

____

Sitting, cross legged upon the stone of a darkened cave, the air filled with the clicks of the creature before him, Aang remains placid, face frozen as the ice in the North, neutral. Ice breaks. Thousands of legs touch stone, moving and twisting as they do. Mandible wide they try and scare him. Aang is good at this game, he wishes it were a game, _but he wishes and he wishes and it never_ – they are before him. They wear a thousand faces and none still are the one he wants to see, to listen to. Aang still listens.

____

Listens as they try to mislead him, here where the wind cannot whisper the truth into his ears. Listen as every part of him, his nerves, his bones, his very being, wants to lead him away. Listen and Aang cannot help but feel that this was a mistake – coming here was a mistake.

____

But Aang was tired of the reds of his world and he needed answers. 

____

* * *

____

In an oasis of hidden rainbows, warm, warmer still with them there and Agni’s rays dancing off his sister to warm them. She dances above and swims below.

____

They know not what they were called here for, but they know – _ringing singing in their veins in their ears_ – that they will know when it is needed. 

____

* * *

____

Legs skitter in every direction, spirits have no need for gravity, nomads normally didn’t either. 

____

They were talking, and Aang was listening – the best he could when he is given a hundred answers to questions he had never asked and kept away from the ones he wants. Aang listens and he learns; however accurate this spirit is telling him, about his past lives and their follies. He listens and he cannot help but feel how unfair it is.

____

He is twelve.

____

Not one hundred.  
_Not one hundred and twelve._

____

Aang is twelve.

____

And he was supposed to be an air nomad, a pacifist, a vegetarian peaceful fun-loving bender who spoke to the winds and convinced them that pastries were meant to be sent into the faces of the grumpy old elders. He wasn’t even supposed to find out that he was the Avatar until he was sixteen.

____

And somehow, they expect him to be more mature, more prepared, more decisive than his past lives. He knows that the spirit before him is telling the truth, but he is of the air, and he knows how the truth can be twisted until it is indistinguishable from lies. Their result much the same. He knows the half-truths of this tongue and Aang just wanted answers.

____

Why no one can bother to be helpful, he does not know.

____

Katara had said it was not his fault. One hundred years were not his fault. He did not know what would happen when he took to the wind on that day in that storm. He did not know what would happen when blue and white and black had saved him from a fortress. It was not his fault, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t responsible…because if he wasn’t, then who was? 

____

And there is something even sadder, _blue mask splattered red, black twisting turning changing_ – if, if things like that could happen and no one was responsible.

____

They had died.

____

And if Aang wasn’t at fault, and the _archer wasn’t at fault_ , and – Aang didn’t know what was worse.  
( _He did, but he didn’t want to say – the world wasn’t supposed to be full of meaningless, faultless –_ ) 

____

Kuruk made mistakes, and Kyoshi had made mistakes, and Roku – Roku had made mistakes. 

____

He was just a kid. 

____

They had got to be _so much older._

____

_He hadn’t meant to – but he had._  
Legs continue to create a cacophony to cover the silence, the gaps, in the truth they tell.

____

* * *

____

There is a call and there is an answer.

____

They had heard. They try and listen to prayers, inadvertent or not. They may not claim to understand them all. _Humans are different, they have rules and ideas that they cannot understand._ Not yet.

____

They try and listen.

____

They are of the shadows, they are meant to blend in. Black and Blue, they are surrounded by the white of the ice and the hair of the favored, so they reflect that. Blue they are the white to match Tui’s domain as she peaks her eye above the horizon. And they are the blue, they are always blue. They do not remember why. Blue Spirit that they are. And they had heard their call – their prayer, from the people before them. From one person before them. 

____

One among many, whispering, speaking, shouting in their ears. _Words whispered to them and only them._

____

The North is in shadow, black rains above.  
There is a feeling a pulling that would lead them back out over the water, away. They do not know why. Or what. But the call that they’ve come to answer came from here, the land, not gray well-polished gray, so they turn and follow white and white and blue. 

____

* * *

____

Legs skitter and the truth is meant to mislead and Aang wonders if he could nap or if that would be considered a facial expression.

____

* * *

____

Gray, polished gray, is around him and his feet stand upon the melting snow. Lieutenant Jee had sworn once that they would never return to the poles, _snow on their deck, crewman frozen – they try and melt them as fast as they can they had to be quick the ice would pull the fire right out of them – fires hastily built up, and a furry beast that had just took off from their deck, back carrying more shouting children who saw fit to leave a chunk of a nearby ice shelf upon their deck_. Lieutenant Jee had sworn to his bald angry prince that they would not be returning. He had sworn on the rusty hull of their – _should be decommissioned_ – home and the fire in his veins, that they would not be returning.

____

He breathes out, the air is just as cold as the last time and he can see his breath even as he uses his own fire to warm himself, snow melts and his boots touch steel. Lieutenant Jee had not wanted to return, he had not wanted many things, but this was not the first promise he had been made to break. And he had sworn on a ship that lay rusting amid La. He had not wanted to return, the air stings at his eyes, they water. There is a fire still within his veins, the melted snow proves that – _and it is all that he had sworn to that he has left._

____

Black snow falls and the North lies before them.  
_Lieutenant Jee is angry – and he is not the only one._

____

Dekku and Genji dance amid ships, the only dance they have without music nights and a pipa that could be found accompanied by the occasional Tsungi Horn, to guide them. Word spreads fast.

____

A ship, _broken burnt ruin._  
And a prince…much the same.

____

_– had made mistakes…_

____

He shifts and no one hears. Lieutenant Jee had oiled his armor and put his helmet on. There was a battle before them to take place in the ice and snow his prince had agreed to not take them to. There is a battle before them and an Admiral stands on deck, confident in his success, standing beside a prince, _The General, ~~an Uncle.~~_

____

An Admiral stands on deck and Lieutenant Jee shifts, a warning unheard.

____

Gray worn gray, a rust bucket ship full of the misfits of the navy…they had chosen their prince.  
Black snow is falling and snow melts below.

____

* * *

____

Aang was tired. He may have mentioned this already. But he was tired.

____

He was tired of people dying and he was tired of not having answers and he was tired of listening to someone who only meant to make him feel worse.

____

And as he listened, he realized more and more, what a mistake coming here had been.

____

_In a temple full of bison and children and laughter, an older man helps shave the hair growing persistently over a blue arrow. And he talks, Aang shifting below full of wanting to play and talk and bend. He was young, younger still then he is now. He talks and tells him of the spirits, laughing when Aang jumped up once his hair was shaved and gone, ready to go._

____

_He is leaning over a pai sho board, lotus centered as always – the first tile upon the board it’s the only way to start the game. Gray eyes patient with a hint of mischievousness, talks and tells him of the spirits. It was meant to distract him – it did._

____

Sitting, cross-legged there is no blade carefully used to scape the persistent growth of unneeded hair, there is just the cold of the stone and a thousand different faces telling stories no one wants to hear. He had just went to clear his head, he had been scared and – _he hadn’t meant to – but he had._

____

Aang was learning there were many things he had not meant for – that he had not known would happen, that will and did. 

____

Sitting straight backed, he keeps the expression off his face – he is wasting time, no answers will be found here – as he excuses himself. Aang is not sure of what he had learned, but he does know that he needs to go, if what the spirit before him had said is true…he needs to leave.

____

Legs twist and turn and move to follow stopping at the edge of the cave, the spirit calls after. Aang will not turn to face them, the face-stealer had stolen thousands of faces, but they will not have his. 

____

They call after him. Aang leaves Koh behind.

____

The North is under siege and help will not be found here.  
Blue will not be found here either. 

____

* * *

____

She is scared, eyes widened, she stands tall. Her spark flickers, she is ready – they are not sure what for. Water had flown with the turn of her arms and her feet shift on the ice, never stopping, as the tides do not. _Accidents do not matter_ – they were human once. She is scared, they do not mean to be scary, _horned and fanged, grinning always grinning,_ they try and soften it. 

____

Head tilted they walk towards her…this does not seem to console her. They smile wider – it does not help. She is scared and she is ready and they do not know what for.

____

They had followed the pull of their prayer to here, walls of ice, rainbowed, steeped in other – their home visible through its shine, they are visible through its shine. They had followed and they may have dove under the walls of the ice for they had seen a turtle-seal duck under it – and they were cute and they had no need to breathe. But they had followed the call here. Eyes upon them, they walk to the pond, to a glowing child, small and arrowed. 

____

They crouch beside them, a small bald child _they had thought only the smallest of humans and the oldest of humans did not have hair_. They crouch beside them – they who are glowing.

____

And know – Avatar, World Spirit ( _Aang_ ).  
Tui watching, blue eyes and those within the shine of icy walls watching, they crouch beside him, _Aang._

____

* * *

Aang has left Koh behind and he is running and he is running and he has always been too late. He needs to get back, Katara and Sokka and Yue and Tui, he needs to get back.

_Blue, if they could give him a hand, he just needs a bit more time._

* * *

Armored feet touch whitened snow. He exhales, breath visible before him, and looks to meet the gold and amber of determined soldiers. 

The moon was high and Lieutenant Jee was a sailor, if Tui hears a slightly blasphemous prayer that was between her and him and quite possibly the spirit of the sun. He had sworn on a rust bucket ship and the fire in his veins, that he would not let his sailors’ feet touch down upon the ice of the poles, he had sworn to a prince. His fire was all he had left, if Agni wanted to take that too, well there had once been a scared thirteen-year-old who couldn’t bend a candle that danced with swords into the night. Lieutenant Jee lived by the sea, the salt was crusted into his hair and skin if Agni took offense to a prayer to another god, he had a slew of swear filled prayers he could send skyward. 

The brown of his eyes meet amber, an admiral had set forth into a city much grander than the huts of the South, they were in agreement. 

His fire to warm him, he sets forth –  
_Ice cracks, and armor wishes it could creak._

* * *

Crouching beside a pond, surrounded by the rainbowed walls of other that allow for the spirits to judge what actions will take part in their oasis, Blue wonders at the glowing impossibility beside them.

A human vessel for the world itself. They had heard of the Avatar of course, but they had never thought that they would be beside them. _The other spirits had warned them, the younger spirits, the minor spirits, that they would not wish to be beside that of the world – for they would be so much greater than they are. They would be so much stronger than they are._ The World Spirit is tiny, tiny and bald. Blue cannot help but wonder if this was but another trick, like that of stealing Oma’s sash, that they would have to twist into their favor and demonstrate their status of Trickster. 

The World Spirit is tiny…and bald. They will remain crouched beside them.

Crouched, even as another child draped in the blues of those of the water, bursts into the oasis. The warmer still with them there oasis. Even as they raise their tool – their toy – to throw at them, only stopped by the waving of the arms of the others. Blue cannot help but wonder what that tool would have done had it been granted flight, it was an odd shape.

_On the other side of the human world, Agni cannot help but stress at the fact that he’s allowed his mischief child out of his sight. He is unsure why, but at this moment he grows ever more so worried._  
_There is still so much that they do not know._

Blue, knows a battle is raging and that people are praying, but they do not pray to them. They would know. They can feel a pull – out towards the blue, the shore, the white of the snow – but the prayer had come from here. They cannot go yet. 

_Blue, if they could –_

Whispered, shouted, hastily worded – a prayer, nonetheless. One of a growing many to them and only them. They do not know what they need to slow, but prayers are not in the words itself but in what was meant, and what one feels. They may be young, but they know when a prayer is asking for protection.

There is a battle raging, and it grows closer as they stand.

_The pull – the feel –_

Wooden door among whitened walls of ice and protection. Walls that allow for all of the spirit world to cast judgment upon those that enter. _They had snuck peeks when they were in their world, before._ It crashes, and those in the oasis before – children – jump, as wood meets ice. Red enters.

There was a prayer, _words whispered to them and only them,_ a call, a pull.

Blue meets their gaze,

 _Murderer,_ the words pass their lips and are known. They rumble to the walls of snow that were made to fortify, to protect. They are spoken and they are rasped raw, they are burnt, they are true.

_Murderer._

* * *

Amber meets the blue of a wooden face, horned and fanged. Zuko. 

* * *

Aang comes crashing into this world, his world. Different or not.

“Katara, they are going to kill the moon!” 

* * *

_Zuko._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here is the next part, I hope you enjoyed it. I wanted to get this out for the start of the new year, so I hope it worked well, I might run through this again because the North Pole really seems to enjoy being difficult. 
> 
> In case you care, my time in writing is still being heavily split as I am still working on relocating, which is unfortunately more difficult amid a pandemic. However, I was really bored at work - and I may have made a tumblr because I feel like with the amount of time I spend on **[MuffinLance](https://muffinlance.tumblr.com/)** tumblr and a handful of other authors I enjoy it was about time. I'm not really sure what I'll do with it yet, we'll see.
> 
> Thanks for reading and continuing with this story especially with the more erratic posting schedule as of late. I hope you all had as great of a 2020 as you could have had, and I hope this year will be much better for all of us. But honestly, thanks it really does mean a lot that people are still reading this, so thanks. 
> 
> 2021 - here we go again.


End file.
